Which cliff-hanger was best/worst?

How did we get here from there? Recently Mary, my dear wife, and I watched season-ending television shows, cliff-hangers all, for NCIS, NCIS-Los Angeles, CSI, Bones, The Mentalist, Person of Interest, Grimm, Castle, Hawaii 5-0, Fringe, and a few more that escape my memory.

Aside from noting that we watch too much television (what did people do before DVRs?), I noted that I'm sick, sick, sick of the season-ending, cliff-hanger.

I began to think, clearly differently that most, what started this trend (as well as what can we do to stop it). Television shows in May, now, must have someone appear to die, someone appear to quit whatever team that someone is on, or someone blow up something that might or might not leave someone in the first-mentioned state (of death).

The rules state that by the second show of the coming television season, the teams will be back together, no one will have died, and whomever was blown up was so inconsequential to the story that it never mattered in the first place and/or you wonder just who was this character in the first place.

Again, who was it that started this? Or should I say, who shot J.R.


In the US, it was the phenomenal success of the "Who shot J.R.? season-ending cliffhanger on Dallas, which closed the show's second season, that led the cliffhanger to become a popular staple on television dramas and later situation comedy series as well. Another notable cliffhanger was the "Moldavian Massacre" on Dynasty in 1985, which fueled speculation throughout the summer months regarding who lived or died when almost all the characters attended a wedding in the country of Moldavia, only to have revolutionaries topple the government and machine-gun the entire wedding party. The "Best of Both Worlds" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1990 is also cited as a reason that season-enders are popular today.

 There was a time when television actually seemed creative, when things didn't have to be manipulative. But that's gone now.

So, there you have it. J.R., who comes back to television this summer before ending the short-season I'm sure with an episode that features "who gave the warm milk to J.R.?"